


This isn't hunk, behind the scenes

by Cyberboredom



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comedy, Depressed Keith (Voltron), Diary/Journal, Hurt/Comfort, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:16:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyberboredom/pseuds/Cyberboredom
Summary: Written along with the Tumblr wrong number series 'this isn't hunk', in which lance unknowingly messages his 'rival' Keith, and later needs his help to win a bet.This 'behind the scenes' will include diary entries from keith, emails between lance and Keith, scenes from before the story is set and so on, in no particular order.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first time posting on ao3 so I'm hoping I'm doing it right ;;
> 
> This first chapter is a short extract from Keith's diary, set up to the 'night out' section of this isn't hunk. 
> 
> Warnings for swearing, alcohol use, themes of depression and, if you squint, references to past self harm.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! X

Dear diary,  
Today wasn't exactly special, I've noticed I've started many entries like that recently which probably isn't good, but here we are. It gets boring writing the same thing everyday, dull lectures, productive gym session, overbearing brother, some middle age couple wanting to argue to me that we were charging too much for books as if I, a uni student, owned the shop.

My assessment came back today, the “self reflection”- how much exactly will I have to write about reflecting on myself in my lifetime? It's rich that the people making me do so also try to claim I overthink/analyse things too much- and I got a first again. With the little free time I have to write up my uni work I'm surprised I get good grades (bar the two I had to re do after missing the deadline). 

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what grades I get, I don't exactly have any 'big dream’ that I need to achieve, uni is nothing but another way to use up my time, potentially a way to get me pay higher than the minimum wage.

After getting my grade back i went to the gym to have a quick jog, I'd already gone in the morning so I barely had the energy for much more. When I was done a girl outside offered me a cigarette, I don't exactly like smoking, I hate it actually, but something about how she held herself made me agree to just the one, and it was as bad as I'd expect, but it was nice to talk to somebody new.

“I see you here a lot,” she said between blowing clouds of smoke into the thick air “I wish I had the self control to keep going as long as you do, Christ,”

“I don't really have self control,” I replied, staring at the orange embers that fell with the ash.

“Whatever you say man,”

After “finishing” the cigarette, rather letting it burn out between my fingers, I started on my way home, and found in one of the many back streets red nuzzled up with another cat. Red can still have kittens- mum doesn't like the idea of getting her neutered for some reason- so I'm a little concerned about that. For all I know it could be another girl cat, so I should probably just ignore it.

(I don't know why I'm pretending I wouldn't be absolutely thrilled at the idea of kittens.)

I don't think there's much else? Apart from getting a wrong number text. I missed the message because I was moping about in my room, but felt a little embarrassed about that so I told him i was at work. A little white lie to a stranger won't matter much, it turned out fine anyway.

Well, I'll write in a few days, see if anything will happen that's worth talking about.

 

Dear diary  
He messaged again. He messaged again asking me to be his fake girlfriend.

What the actual fuck. 

Why. Who does that. 

Apparently It's to do with some bet? I can't imagine why nobody wants to date him- a guy who makes bets to shut their friends up.

I don't know why it bugged me so much, I suppose it's nothing that bad, but it goes a little against social norms to ask favours from a stranger.

I did end up accepting, he seemed pitiful... and I don't know how to block numbers. Apparently he'll message me back soon.

In other news, I've been put on new antidepressants, and then meds for the insomnia they cause, which is absolutely beautiful. I'm hoping the 'weight gain’ symptom won't matter with how much I work out, body fat is essential for building muscle after all. 

Write positives Keith! That's the point of this diary! Well maybe the antidepressants will actually work, maybe kittens are on the way, maybe I'll be able to tell my family I'm gay soon.

I hate that my positives are all maybes.

Well. See you diary.

 

Dear diary,  
Rolo smiled at me today, I think it was a pity smile. I shouldn't drink, I always do stupid things when I drink, like ask out guys even though I'm still deep in the closet.

 

Dear diary,  
If you were to create a fake girlfriend what would you call her? I think I'd pick something really extra. Esmeralda maybe, Cecelia, or maybe I'd name her after a flower. 

Granted, if I were going to give myself a girl's name I wouldn't suit anything like those, but I wouldn't be Sarah. 

There's nothing wrong with the name at all but why would you create a partner with such a basic, standard name. You could meet a Sarah just on the street, but a girl called Esmeralda? There would be a story there, you met her on the beach when you were young and remained penpals until she moved just for you!

... yeah I'm still gay.

I suppose the guy isn't as bad as he seemed but I've only had three conversations with him now, and all of them left me annoyed, low in my belly. Okay the first time I was already in a bad mood, rather than him doing anything wrong, and was annoyed at the inconvenience, but still.

In a continuation of my horrendous luck, the insomnia pills aren't working! I've gotten an two hours a sleep each the past few nights. I'll admit I'd prefer to have the energy boost the antidepressants give to sleeping well, at least, that's how I feel after a couple of days of bad sleep. That doesn't mean I wouldn't just at the end of the day rather not have depression in the first place.

But hey, the more I'm awake the more time I get to do work. It does feel good to have an assignment done two weeks before it's due, but it feels less good to have lance throwing a paper ball at you in a lecture saying “stay awake mullet, don't want me to beat your grades do you?” after you close your eyes a few seconds longer than you should.

Why he thinks I'd give a shit is beyond me.

At the gym I started a new audiobook, gone girl, it's apparently 22 hours long, so I'll have finished it after 22 hours of exercise. I've heard the movie is good, so I imagine the book is worth it. I really love the feeling of pushing my muscles to the limit, while my mind is in another world through story. It's so foreign from everyday life, and I do hate everyday life, so that's great.

For example, I saw mum looking at my wrists today. I hadn't done anything to them, so nothing came of it, but it make me feel... tainted. Does that make sense? Everybody who cares about me had these rotten expectations because of my rotten mental illness. It's like I'm defined by it.

It could be worse, as I hear shiro whisper to himself whenever something doesn't go right for him, but it doesn't exactly make me feel better that there are people out there feeling worse than I do. Whatever.

In even more dismal news, Rolo actually talked to me today.

“Hey Keith, just making sure there aren't any hard feelings between us?” He was leaning on the shelf I was restocking, fiddling with a braided string bracelet which was loose around his tanned wrist. I kept having to avoid picking up books that were meant to be put in the sections his overly long legs were blocking, which wasn't exactly helping my already sour mood. 

“Rolo. I told you what happened was just the result of me being drunk as fuck- I can't even remember asking you, actually. Please just… stop bringing it up,” I shoved a book a bit too roughly into its place, to punctuate my request as more of a demand, making the already weak paperback curl ever so slightly. 

It was true, the only reason I knew about what had happened was because of his overly long apology text the next day- no exaggeration, it took me five minutes to read it all.

Rolo thinks being straight makes him need to apologise more than if a gay guy were to reject me. As if doing so makes him homophobic. I was empathic at first, he genuinely seemed worried that he had upset me, but at this point it seems like his apologies are only for his own gain. 

“Alright, cool, I just. You seem like a good guy and I don't want to lose you as a friend, I'm flattered that you like me too-”

“Rolo. I don't Fucking like you. I thought you were hot and that's it. Get over yourself please,”

It might have been too harsh, I admit, but it worked, it got him to back off and actually let me do my work again. 

Long story short, my positives are still all maybes.

 

Dear diary,  
When I said I wasn't going to drink again… yeah that was a lie. At least tonight I'm going to a pub and not some seedy club on an alleyway next to a sex shop. Shiros taking me, with his friends, so that should be safe.

Pidge will be there, and that's a plus. I rarely see them anymore since high school, them being friends with lance and lance hating me. I'm actually kind of excited to spend a night out with them.

But while there's pidge there's also, as previously mentioned, lance. Apparently he's fine with me coming, according to Shiro, but I don't buy it.

As long as he doesn't try the whole rival thing, I'll be fine. The most annoying thing about lance is that he isn't easy to hate. He's a fun, ambitious guy who can make his friends laugh easily, the only reason we're not friends is well, I guess I'm easy to hare. 

I won't dwell on it, this might actually be a good night.

I also have the job of being the text guys fake girlfriend tonight, coincidentally he's also going out, and his friend wanted to meet his newly found (fake) girlfriend. So I have to text him while they're out pretending that I'm ill and couldn't make it while he tries to get a real girlfriend.

It doesn't seem worth it, personally. Don't get me wrong I despise being nagged at when in a group project but this is a bit of a hassle.

I suppose I admire his dedication.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keiths diary part two!   
> The next chapter wont be Keiths diary but this definitely wont be the last you see of it :)
> 
> Buy me a coffee! -http://ko-fi.com/thisisnthunk

Dear diary  
He without name remains girlfriendless, which leads me to think he will never find his ‘sarah’. He apparently had a wing man too, how do you mess that up? Even I could find a girlfriend on a night out if I wanted to, which I don't, pretty easily. We live near a university, there are god knows how many thirsty single’s around here.

I suppose that's a bit assumptious, he might not live near the uni, but he does sound the Uni type. If that makes sense? And our numbers start with the same area code.

Whatever though, I suppose I should stop dedicating so much of my diary entrees to him, I don’t know anything about him, except that he’s a guy, and that his favourite colour is blue. We did talk for awhile this morning, when we were both sobering up, he seems ok.

Drinking wasn’t actually bad, we stayed out until four am, and I got to reconnect with Pidge a little, which was nice. Their brother is apparently moving down to London, the University he works at thinks he’ll be more productive in their other campus, and are offering him a pay rise to love. They didn’t say it, but I could tell that it was really bothering them. Pidge and Matt were inseparable growing up to it just suck for her. I’d hate for shiro to move away from me.

I also did not ask anybody out this time, which is a win, I don’t want any other cases like Rolo.

Whom I may have drunk texted. Just a heart. Why did I do that? I don’t know. I don't like him- genuinely I don’t, I know at this point it’s hard to believe but it’s true. He’s not even the most attractive guy I know. Some part of my drunk unconcious must find a part of him appealing, maybe it’s because he doesn’t want me.

I hate how that makes sense, it sounds like something my therapist would say.

“You spent your whole life seeking approval from those who do not want you, maybe Rolo is just a manifestation of that?”

Ha. hahh. Fuck my life.

He didn’t respond anyway, left me on read, maybe that’s for the better, I don’t even remember sending it. 

 

 

Dear Diary,  
“Hey Mullet, when you have a kid are you going to name her Miley? Get it? Because you have the same hair as Billy Ray Cyrus,”

I think he had that one held in after being nice to me on wednesday. Shiro was probably the one who made that happen, Lance is never nice to me without somebody telling him to be. It’s a shame, I don’t dislike how he is when he doesn’t despise my existence. It was actually kinda fun to playfully tease him rather than completely insult him like I usually do. His competitiveness actually comes in handy when getting drunk, too, he even bought me pints in order to prove he could down them faster than I could (two out of three became three out of five and so on). 

However he had no reason to be nice to me today and I had sat in front of him without realising. When I turned around to follow his voice, looking surprised, he looked pretty happy with his joke.

“You know an awful lot of celebrities with Mullets, Lance, are you sure you don't like them?” was my response. To be honest I was too tired to deal with it, it was a 9am lecture and I was still sore from working out before it, so I didn’t have the energy or strength to humour him past that. I’d said the same thing last time, when he said I look like Ellen DeGeneres in her early days- I do not, by the way, what he calls a mullet is just slightly longer hair than usual, and even if I did have one Ellen isn’t a half bad person to look like- and it was true. It’s almost like he googles them in his spare time 

Nevertheless his grin contracts slightly, displeased, and he turned his attention back to whoever he was sat next to. I’m pretty sure he said something about me to them expecting me to care enough to pay attention, maybe get a reaction, but I heard nothing passed my name. 

That all was nothing out of the ordinary, though, I get a smart arse comment from him weekly, often more. What did catch me off guard, though, was at the end of the lecture, just as I was about to leave, I could have swore he looked at me. Properly, I mean. It lingered enough that I had to go check in the bathroom mirror to make sure there wasn’t anything on my face- it wouldn’t have been the first time, im a pen chewer.

I can almost still feel his gaze still, I don’t know what about it struck me so much. Maybe it was that he looked… almost remorseful? 

And god, I’ve not complained about this properly for a long time but why does he have to be handsome? When he’s not smirking at something mean he just said, his smiles can be genuinely radiant. Was that a silly way to describe it? What I mean is that, when he smiles I get an impulse to smile too. His eyes, too, god, I wish I got to look in them more. I don’t need somebody I don’t like to look good. 

I also don’t need straight boys who “definitely aren’t homophobic Keith I promise you, I just dont like guys you know-” to look good. I’m starting to think he might actually like boys after all. I’d help him out if I wasn’t too closeted to function myself. Today he asked me what the heart meant, again, while we were supposed to be doing work.

It’s probably so I don’t make a fuss, I can’t exactly scream “fuck off” at him while in the middle of a shift. I suppose it’s actually a smart way to go about it, but I kind of despise him for it.

“It means I was drunk again Rolo,” I replied through gritted teeth, so I wasn’t exactly loud, it seemed that he managed to hear me properly anyway.

“Oh? Do you only like me when your drunk?”

“Apparently,”

“Ah,” he looked dejected, how incredibly straight.

 

Dear diary  
The lack of sleep is starting to get to me, but I’m feeling a lot better from the meds otherwise so i’m kind of conflicted. When my therapist asked me if the meds were working I told her they were, I feel like I shouldn’t have done that now.

It’s 3am, I wasn’t really planning on writing today, but I’ve run out of work to do, and being awake is sort of driving me crazy. I’d wake Shiro up but, I don’t want to deprive him of sleep, he doesn’t deserve that.

I’ve even complempleted messaging the wrong number, but I’m not sure if I want to get close to him. In his drunk texts he said he wanted to stay in contact with me, and even though he isn’t the worst person, I don’t think that’d be a great idea.

I don’t need another person who can just leave without a trace, you know?

“That's irrational keith, think positively Keith,”

Im positive i’d rather be alone than risk being left again.

 

Dear diary  
We talked again but I’m refusing to give him my name, I’m hoping that stops me from getting attached to him. He in retaliation didn’t tell me his name back, that's good.

I told him about mothman because he was bored, he was helping a friend out or something. It’s actually been kind of a long time since I got to rant about my interests so I suppose it was nice, and he genuinely seemed to enjoy listening to me.  
“You’re not Sarah anymore by the way,”  
“I was never actually Sarah”  
“You’re mothman now!- oh shit wait, what do you have me saved as?”  
“Why would I have you saved on my phone?”  
“YOU DON’T HAVE ME SAVED? I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!”  
“You dont know my name,”  
“Fine, fake partners”  
“Thats worse,”

He’s very.. Expressive, and he’s fun to message, as much as I hate to admit that. I lost track of the time, actually, which is a rare commodity to me. I wish I could lose track more, not care about what time it is and just get lost in what i’m doing. Working out does that for me to a degree, but I abide by a strict routine in the gym which sort of takes that away from me.

“Have you ever been to the Bridge?”  
“No, but if I did I’d want him to throw me off,”  
“Sigihgiushg SARAH”  
“Call me Sarah again and ill throw you off a bridge”

 

 

Dear Diary   
I told Shiro I was gay today.

It wasn’t really a big moment, like it is in all the horror stories or the movies. It’s actually quite gross that all you here about in the media is the bad side of coming out, and yet it’s so heavily forced upon young gay people. But that’s not what happened to me. All that happened today was that Shiro asked me if I had a girlfriend, and I replied “I don’t like girls.”

So technically I didn’t come out as gay, I came out as not straight. At all. 

There was a bit of a silence, he gave me the usual surprised Shiro look- eyebrows up, lips pressed to the side of his face, but somehow still managing to maintain a soft impressed smirk nonetheless. 

“Okay, boyfriend then?”

“I don’t even have friends shiro,” 

“That’s a lie. What about Pidge? And Rolo?” I snort, to which his impressed smirk drops ever so slightly “that guy you’ve been messaging non stop since the other day?”

I glare at him slightly, and turn back to the work I was doing before he came into my room, armed with hot chocolate and the intent for brotherly bonding. “I have not been messaging him non stop. I don’t even know the guys name,”

“Don’t you think you should ask then?” He sips at his drink, loudly, and then grunts slightly at what I assume is a newly burnt tongue. 

Shiro throws himself down onto my bed, the springs squeal under his weight, as the always do when I lie down to sleep. Does my bad mattress impede further on my sleeping problems? Very much so. Am I going to get a new one? No. Mattresses can be so expensive. And I’m saving my money to get a new pet. “Aren’t you supposed to say shit like ‘be careful with strangers Keith’ because this guy might turn out to be a serial killer or something like that?”

“Do you think he’s a seriel killer?”

“I wouldn’t be talking to him if he was,”

“Than i’m sure its fine,”

And then he burns himself on his hot chocolate again.

I do wish Shiro was the first person I told, though I suppose I didn’t actually tell Rolo. Come to think of it, for all he knows I could be bi, why is he always talking about how he doesn’t hate gay people?

Stupid question, he’s ignorant, duh. Though today he did ask me how I knew I liked guys. I suppose that's an improvement. I have to give him credit where it’s due, he’s never avoided me after what happened or anything, he genuinely isn’t homophobic. He’s just a little… too into the fact that I like men, if that makes sense? He brings it up in every conversation and it’s getting- scratch that, it got boring days ago.

So yeah, I wish Shiro had found out before he did, Shiro didn’t even mention it passed asking if I had a boyfriend. I’m really glad I could have him as a brother.

 

Dear Diary  
We got a new employee today at work, she’s called romelle, she seems quirky, and a tad naive, but nice overall. She asked me if I wanted to get a coffee, and when I raised my eyebrow at that she quickly shook her head and said “I mean as friends!” before looking around her briefly and leaning in to whisper “I like girls, don’t worry,”

To which I laughed at slightly, though not sure if was something I was allowed to laugh at. So we went to get a coffee, I didn’t tell her I like men, but I’m wondering if she already guessed.

Either Way it feels nice to have an ally in the shop.

I decided I should pick up a new hobby after talking to her, and hearing the many that she has. But I don't really know what. I always get frustrated starting new things, because i’m never good at whatever I starts. It’s kind of comfortable only ever working out, going to work, and going to uni, because i'm good at those three things.

Eventually i'll be good at this new thing though, so I suppose it's worth it.

Dad does have a run down motorcycle in the shed, maybe I can work out how to work on that?

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be doing more of Keith's diary, but between chapters there may be different things going on. Also I'm sorry for how slow I know for sure I'll be writing this but I'll do my best to get chapters out.


End file.
